Flying Blind

the way, mess with tools, or bother the mechanics or anything. Sometimes I run errands and help out a little. Like that time I helped you, Mr. Mantz, with that battery.”

“That’s right,” Mantz said, with a little smile. “You did help me haul that into the plane, didn’t you?”

“Big green heavy-duty Exide battery,” the kid said, nodding, “’bout three times the size of a car battery. That’s how she’s sendin’ her messages, I bet.”

Mantz said, “Out of fuel, she couldn’t be using the radio, otherwise; she’d need the right engine running to keep the plane’s batteries charged.”

“I got to watch the first takeoff from the hotel balcony,” Robert said, basking in the memory. “Amelia invited me—can you picture that? Me with her Hollywood friends with their fancy clothes and flashy jewelry! But you shoulda seen the dirty looks Mr. Putnam gave me. He woulda never put up with me bein’ around if Amelia hadn’t told him to…. Wasn’t any fanfare on the second takeoff.”

I sipped my Coke. “You and Mr. Putnam didn’t hit it off?”

Robert frowned, shook his head. “He’s a nasty person. Sometimes he had his son with him, called him ‘Junior’? He’s a nice kid, I don’t know, a year or two older than me. Not wild or anything…quiet.”

“Well behaved,” Mantz agreed.

“Well, I saw Mr. Putnam slap him, yell at him, really dress him down, for nothin’…. Once in the washroom over in the terminal building, Mr. Putnam hit him for ‘not washing up’ good enough.”

“You ever have a run-in with him?” I asked.

“Run-in! Run down is more like it!”

I waved a fly away from me. “What do you mean?”

“Well, this one day a man in an Army uniform…I don’t know what rank, but he sure wasn’t a private…came in the cafe here, while I was sitting at the counter with Amelia and Mr. Noonan. Havin’ snails and milk, like always. This Army man had a bunch of papers for them to sign, ‘releases,’ he called them, or ‘clearances’ or something, I don’t know…. Anyway, Mr. Noonan said maybe I better leave, and so I did, and when I came out, Mr. Putnam spotted me. He came over, shouting at me, ‘What did you see in there?’ I said, ‘Nothing.’ And I started walking away, and he blocked me and started yelling! About how I’d seen and heard a lot of things I wasn’t supposed to, calling me a ‘punk,’ saying things like ‘Don’t you have a home?’ He told me to stay away and stop snooping around.”

I glanced at Mantz, who was frowning, then asked, “Did you say anything, Robert? Or just walk away?”

“Heck, no, I didn’t walk away! I yelled right back at him—said I had as much right as he did to come around the airport. He looked like he was gonna grab me…only I’m not small, like his son, and he musta thought better of it. But he started yelling again: ‘If I catch you around here again, you’ll disappear and no one will know where to find you!’ Then he kinda stormed off.”

Mantz was shaking his head in disgust.

I asked, “What did you do, Robert?”

“Started to walk home. I just thought he was a real nut, I was ticked off, and you know how it is when you’re mad, and the thoughts are sorta racing…I wasn’t gonna let him scare me away, there was no way I wasn’t comin’ around the airport anymore, it’s my home away from home. And while I was walkin’, it’s kind of a lonely stretch of road, and it was kinda late, hopin’ to hitch but figurin’ I was probably out of luck, I heard a car comin’ and thought, great! Finally a ride! Only it was this big black Hudson and Mr. Putnam was driving. He was looking at me all pop- eyed and crazy and you don’t have to believe me, but I swear he aimed that big car right at me and gunned it. I jumped out of the way, into the ditch—he was going so fast, driving so crazy, he sort of lost control and almost went in the ditch himself; he slammed on his brakes and started backing up, and turning around! If this other car hadn’t come along just then, and picked me up, I don’t know what woulda happened.”

“Maybe,” Mantz said softly, “it was an accident and he was backing up to come see if you were all right.”

“I don’t believe in Santa Claus,” Robert said. “I haven’t for a long time.”

“That’s a good policy,” I told the boy. “Did you tell the police? Or your parents, or anyone?”

He shook his head and his blond mop bobbed. “No. Mr. Putnam’s rich and famous. I’m just a poor kid. Who’re they gonna believe? But at least he left me alone after that. Of course, it was just a few days before the flight, the second flight. Did you know she took film along, a lot of film?”

“Really?” I asked, giving Mantz a sideways glance.

“Did you help with that, Mr. Mantz?” the boy asked. “I mean, everybody knows you’re famous for aerial photography.”

“No.”

Robert gestured out the window. “Well, I saw some Navy people deliver some big boxes to the hangar. A big white seal was on all the boxes—it said ‘Naval Air Photography, USN,’ or something close to that. Mr. Putnam had those Navy guys load ’em on the plane. I think they put ’em way in the back…. That’s what they made her do, isn’t it? Take pictures of islands she flew over. Islands that belong to the Japanese, right?”

Mantz and I exchanged startled looks. How could this kid know that?

He was still talking, lost in memory: “She made me promise, you know. Before she left. She told me she was going on a very secret and dangerous mission and that if I heard anything had happened to her or Mr. Noonan, I was supposed to tell somebody…my mother…the police…or somebody…” He sighed. “Well I finally have.”

“It must feel good, Robert,” I said quietly, “to get this off your chest.”

He grinned, but it was a halfway, qualified grin. “It does, ’cause when I called the police, the man just laughed at me.”

“You called the police about what Amelia told you?”

His forehead tightened. “No…not exactly…it was about what I heard on the radio.”